Now I know this isn't actually a picturebook, although it does have wonderfully eerie photographs in it, but I just finished reading it and wanted to share.
A forum for the discussion of reading instruction in K-12 classroom settings focusing on workshop approaches to literacy instruction. For more information: www.frankserafini.com
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
PBD: Journey
From the Amazon website: A lonely girl draws a magic door on her bedroom wall and escapes through the wall into a wondrous world where adventure lies.
In this wonderful wordless picturebook, Becker takes on a journey through real and imaginary places to help us share in the character's challenges and quest for self-determination. The art is bright and colorful and creates another world where anything seems possible.
I am currently writing my new column for The Reading Teacher featuring new and unusual wordless picturebooks. Look for the column this fall!
Thursday, March 20, 2014
PBD: Wolves
Wolves by Emily Gravett is one of Gravett's best works (and that is saying something since I love ALL of her books). In this postmodern picturebook, a rabbit is enticed to the library to check out a book to learn about the dangers associated with wolves. Unfortunately, the wolf may be behind the advertisements and be complicit in luring the unsuspecting rabbit into his trap. The book takes a twist when an alternative ending is offered. Multiple narratives and a book within a book structure offers the reader a complex array of perspectives from which to consider what happens to the rabbit. An interactive book that will keep students talking for hours.
What is Close Reading?
Excerpts from my Reading Teacher Column:
The term close
reading was originally associated with the work of the New Critics, in
particular Cleanth Brooks, I. A. Richards, John Ransom, and Robert Penn Warren.
New Criticism emphasized structural and textual analysis by focusing on the work
of literature itself and excluded a reader’s responses, the author's intentions,
and the historical and cultural contexts from their analyses. In these writings, close reading referred to an
objective, distanced type of reading that places the reader as discoverer of
meaning and the text as a self-contained, aesthetic object that holds the
meaning to be discovered.
Serafini, Frank. (2013/2014). Close
Readings and Children’s Literature. The
Reading Teacher. 67
(4), 299-301.
Close
Reading and Children’s Literature
Close Reading
As stated in the CCSS, today’s students are asked to read closely to determine
what the text says explicitly, to make logical inferences from their
interactions with a text, and cite specific textual evidence when writing or
speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text (CCSS, 2010). The materials produced in service of the CCSS seem to
suggest teachers have been lax in their development of readers’ analytical
abilities, focusing too much on personal response and not enough on careful,
close reading of the texts students encounter, and allowing students to read
texts that are not complex enough. Readers are encouraged to stay within the four corners of the text when trying to comprehend
more complex texts. It is suggested that through a more deliberate type of
active reading that is purposeful and objective driven, readers will become
more proficient in their reading abilities.
Close reading of text is designed to produce a coherent representation of what the text says. Through the interpretation of words and phrases,
the analysis of the structures of text, and understanding the author’s
reasoning and use of evidence, readers are to deepen their comprehension of
texts. It is asserted close reading of text moves readers away from their
dependence on background knowledge in order to apply critical thinking skills
and develop a logical argument in response to their reading. Through the close reading of short, complex texts, extensive teacher
modeling, and asking text-based questions students will develop their
comprehension abilities for understanding the textual arguments presented by
the author and be better able to write responses to their reading experiences.
Implications for Reading Teachers
In order to support readers’
comprehension abilities and their development of arguments and supporting
evidence, teachers need to help students set purposes for reading, promote
connections to previously read texts, activate background knowledge, review key
ideas and details, create text-dependent questions, talk about what has been
read, and spend time analyzing the various visual and textual elements of a
text in more depth.
Using shorter texts, teachers need to demonstrate what it
means to do a close reading of a
text. Demonstrating how one approaches a text, the strategies one uses to
analyze the language and textual features, and the citing of evidence to
support an argument are all valuable lessons for one’s reading instructional
framework. If teachers are unable to demonstrate how to do this type of
reading, students will have a difficult time doing it themselves.
A Few Concerns
Readers make sense of the texts they
encounter, not by staying within the four corners of a text, but by using their
background knowledge of the world, their previous experiences with text, their
understandings of language, the context of the text’s production, dissemination
and reception, and the text itself to
construct meaning. How will a focus on the text itself change the way readers
are asked to make sense of literary and informational texts? With all the changes suggested by
the CCSS, and the high stakes associated with the new assessments being
developed and implemented, where is the funding and support for quality professional
development going to come from to help teachers develop the skills they will
need to help readers? It is one thing to change the requirements for students
and teachers; it is another to successfully implement these changes. We
need to develop our own understandings of the requirements for close reading in
various contexts, be ready to demonstrate to our students what this type of
reading entails, and provide resources and instructional support to ensure our
students’ success.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
PBD: A walk in the Park
This wonderful book by Anthony Browne has recently been re-released with this new cover. For readers of Browne's work, this is the "prequel" or original version of the story that became Voices in the Park - one of Browne's most popular, and I would add, most intriguing and sophisticated picturebook. In this book, we are introduced to the names of the two adult characters - Mrs. Smythe and Mr. Smith. The story is told as a single perspective narrative rather than the four part narrative in Voices in the Park. For many years, this book has been out of print and copies were extremely expensive. So good to have this book available now for a reasonable price.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
PBD: The Dark
Many readers will relate to the theme of this story, but maybe not to the dark images and color palette selected by Jon Klassen to visually narrate it. The age old story of being afraid of the dark is told in a new and unusual way, by bringing the dark to life as a character.
"You might be afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of you. That's why the dark is always close by"
The story is average in my opinion, but the wonderfully dark and well designed images add to eerie sense of the dark and make this one of my new favorites.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Reading Workshop 2.0: Some Preliminary Thoughts
Currently, I am working on a manuscript for Heinemann Publishers on Teaching Reading in the Digital Age. Here are some thoughts as I begin to write this books:
I have been reading and writing
about workshop approaches to reading instruction for the past 25 years. One
might think that I should have run out of things to say about these
instructional approaches and classroom frameworks a long time ago. Alas, that
is not to be. I seem to have a few more things to say about the changes that
have taken place in literacy education, in particular the changes in technology
and digital resources that have affected the ways we teach children to read and
write and how we organize classrooms to support this endeavor. Drawing on my
previous work on the Reading Workshop (Serafini, 2001, 2008), this book will
provide teachers and literacy educators with a new vision for the reading
workshop, new resources for instruction, discussion, and analysis of texts, and
some new ways to think about supporting students in their journey to becoming more
engaged literate beings.
Into
my previous discussions and work on reading instruction and workshop approaches
I am now inserting the concept of Reading
Workshop 2.0 (Two-Point-Oh). For
many teachers the attachment of 2.0
to the term reading workshop may seem
like an unwelcome addition to an already overcrowded curriculum; just one more
thing to worry about covering. However, I assure you that is not my intention
in writing this book. The last thing I want to do is give teachers one more
thing to worry about. I don’t see these resources and instructional approaches
adding any new burdens to teachers’ workload; instead, I see the resources and
instructional approaches offered in this book helping teachers do the same
important things reading workshop teachers have been doing for years in more
effective, efficient, and exciting ways.
The term technology can be misleading. When
people say the word technology they too often mean the newest gizmo or digital
resource that is being bandied about by friends in and out of education.
However, it is important to remember that the pen and pencil were also
important technological advancements at one time in our history, so was the codex, nowadays more commonly referred
to as a book. Writing a book like this requires attending to all forms of
technology, not just the newest digital resource or fad to hit the Internet.
A
Reading Workshop 2.0 approach must
also take into account what Lankshear and Knobel refer to as the new ethos stuff, in addition to
addressing the new technical stuff.
By new technical and ethos stuff, they are suggesting that along with the
changes in the technologies teachers and students are exposed to in and out of
school, the ways these technologies are used and how they alter the way we
interact with information, people and ideas has also changed. As students and
teachers draw on these new technologies (new technical stuff), they are no
longer viewed simply as consumers of information; rather they are producers and
critics of information, as well. More will be presented on these technical and
ethos concepts in the opening chapters.
Creating New Spaces
In
2001, when I wrote my first book for Heinemann, The Reading Workshop: Creating Space for Readers, the concept of space in the subtitle was conceptualized
primarily as a physical space, the organization, layout, and procedures
necessary for enacting a reading workshop model in one’s classroom. With the
expansion of the Internet and the increased availability of new digital
resources since I wrote that book, the space being conceptualized in this new
book has both physical and virtual aspects. Creating space for readers and
reading in a 2.0 environment means addressing the role of digital and on-line
resources in addition to the traditional resources of classroom libraries, print-based
texts, and word processors. I see these new Reading
Workshop 2.0 resources and approaches as expansions of our traditional spaces,
moving the learning that occurs there beyond the walls of the traditional
classroom.
As
more and more books are provided in digital formats, as book reviews are posted
on-line for anyone in the world to read, and as students’ access to information
through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) continually expands,
the spaces we provide students to support and foster their literate abilities
must take into account these resources and exciting possibilities. What counts
as being literate is growing more complex every year. Because ICTs and digital
resources require different skills than the skills needed by our parents’
generation, decoding print based texts needs to be viewed as a necessary, but insufficient set of skills
given the complexity of multimodal texts, on-line and digital resources, and
social media (Luke; Freebody). Reading has always been more than decoding,
its just is more obvious in these new environments that students will need a
larger array of skills to be successful readers.
Reading as
Interpretation, Writing as Representation
The
strategies, processes, and practices used for making sense of the more complex
texts (multimodal ensembles) encountered in today’s world goes beyond simple
notions of comprehension to more complex conceptions of interpretation. In
similar fashion, writing is no longer simply putting pencil to paper; it is about
designing multimodal texts by drawing on digital resources, visual images,
design elements and other resources in the process of making one’s ideas
visible. Students can now make their ideas and interpretations visible to the
entire world almost instantaneously through the Internet and other ICTs. This
changes everything. What knowledge is valued, what processes and practices are
used in coming to know, and whose knowledge is valued and privileged changes
with the new technical and ethos stuff mentioned earlier.
Design
is thinking made visible. If this is true then our students need to learn new
ways and use new tools for making their thinking visible. This is one of the
basic concepts that needs to be explored; how do students use new digital, on-line
and visual resources to make their ideas visible and available for further
discussion.
PBD: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce started out as animated short that eventually won an Academy Award for animation. Then it became a digitally based video book and was sold as an app - available here:
Then it became an amazing picturebook. But that isn't all - now there is an augmented reality app that transforms the hard cover version of the picturebook into an interactive book when you hold a wifi connected iPad or iPhone over the pages of the book. For me these versions are a game-changer, bringing new possibilities to the format of the picturebook. This format is always expanding in new and exciting ways and Joyce and Moonbot Studios have really pushed the envelope.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
PBD: Looking Closely in the Rainforest
This may be rather self-promoting to start off my series of book reviews, but I wanted to call readers' attention to the fact that I have written and illustrated (photography) a series of informational picturebooks called Looking Closely. For this particular book I traveled to Costa Rica, Fiji, Australia and the temperate rain forests of North America (Washington and British Columbia) to find some of the most interesting plants and wildlife for this final book in the series. The books feature a crop and reveal format and ask readers to guess what something might be before having it revealed through full color photography. Children will have lots of fun guessing what these things might be.
These books are available through my website at: http://www.frankserafini.com/picturebooks.html
or Amazon.
PBD - Picturebook of the Day
I am starting to post a new picturebook review each day from the thousands of books in my collection, focusing on new arrivals and interesting finds. Hope you find this useful.
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